One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. – Joseph Stalin

A poignant and chilling statement (especially given the source). 

More so because it strikes so true.  Most people barely notice when tens of thousands die in conflicts in Sudan or Myanmar, but their lives are overturned by just a single death of someone they know. 

The Torah says “Take a census of the entire assembly of the Children of Israel according to their families, according to their fathers’ household, by number of names…”  A surface read indicates that this is a parsha about dry statistics.  About emotionless numbers and little else. 

What’s even more puzzling is there is actually a mitzvah not to do this: Jews should not “count the people by head.”  It’s dehumanizing.  When you take a person and make them into a number, you minimize everything about their life.  You reduce an entire story, an entire soul, into no more than a tally mark.  The Nazi’s understood this well when they tattooed numbers on their victims, as if to say “you are no longer a person, you are just a number.”

How can it be that the very Torah that warns of the danger of turning people into numbers, then devotes serious real estate to documenting statistics and numbering the Israelites?!

If we look closer, we see that the Torah conducts this “count” in an unusual manner.  It tells us their names.  It tells us about their family relationships.  Instead of just counting how many there are, it gives us a glimpse as to who they are.  Counting by pointing at heads as if they are all equivalent is dehumanizing, but listing names is not.  A name embodies the essence of a person and reflects their unique soul. 

So numbers don’t have to be evil.  But It’s our job to remember the humanity of the people represented by those numbers. 

Ok, but why should we count at all?  Aren’t numbers irrelevant to God?  Gideon led a troop of only 300 warriors to defeat a massive army that fielded over 100,000 soldiers.  A handful of Maccabees overcame the mighty Seleucid Empire to redeem the Temple for the first Chanukah.  Israel managed to overcome a much larger force of surrounding enemy states in 1967 in just six days (which is celebrated as Jerusalem Day on the day this blog post will be published.)

Although there are times when God does miracles for us and leads us to victory against all odds, we are expected to act as though we live within nature.  We know that miracles happen, but G-d does not want us to rely on them happening (besides for certain exceptional circumstances).  We are expected to crunch the numbers and do what is reasonable based on them.

Moses needed to take a census of the Israelite footmen so he could have an idea of their military capabilities for the battles to come.  But he did it in a way that respected the individuals as human beings.

So keep appraised of the statistics.  Follow the numbers.  But never forget the dignity of the people behind those numbers.  Never lose your humanity.

Good Shabbos,

Rabbi A and the JET Team